


a stopped clock

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Songs of Heaven: Booker Dewitt + Elizabeth Comstock [2]
Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Constants and Variables, Gen, downer ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 17:44:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19950289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day.  Booker DeWitt struggles with demons old and new, but things may not be as they seem.  How do you trust a memory that isn't real?





	a stopped clock

**Author's Note:**

> There’s always a lighthouse.
> 
> There’s always a man.
> 
> There’s always a city.
> 
> ***
> 
> The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist…

Booker DeWitt stares down at his hands. They’re calloused, cracked, scarred. Funny how he still sees blood there even when they’re clean.

He shakes his head. No matter. He’s got a job to do. The rain lashes his hands clean, and in the distance he sees it rising from the churning sea: the lighthouse.

***

It’s a city here, nothing he’s ever seen, maybe New York in a fever dream. He doesn’t feel so good, but shooting through the air, nearly drowning, and floating in the sky might do that to a man. 

He’s dizzy in the thin air. He tries to take it all in, but the details slide past him, overwhelming. Buildings rising impossibly into the clouds, the sun more blinding than it’s ever been, wind chilled like a gust from an icebox, music he’s never heard swirling around him. The fuck is this place –

“Welcome to Columbia!” a man says brightly. Booker just scowls, head clearing. He’s not here to make friends. He’s never been anywhere for that.

“Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt,” he mutters. The man eyes him warily.

***

A coin flips, hangs glittering in the air like one of the hummingbirds in the gardens, and Booker wonders what it means, how much it’s worth, whose blood it might buy. Twin faces politely catalogue his choice and he prowls past them, man on a mission.

***

Ah. Turns out this city ain’t so golden after all. 

This, _this_ makes sense to him, nose crunching beneath his fist, knuckles splitting, blood fountaining from another man’s face. It always comes to this, doesn’t it? He’s a Pinkerton man, brutish through and through, and before that –

The shrieks are in English now, not Sioux, but they end the same way. 

***

Monument Island, the signs all say, but Booker’s skin crawls. It doesn’t make sense. What monument needs _danger_ signs, quarantines? Doesn’t add up. Yet all he finds in the end, humming and twirling in a library behind iron doors six inches thick, is the girl.

Elizabeth.

***

She’s so damn naive. 

It almost hurts him, that innocence in her wide eyes. How could anyone get through life so _trusting_? There’s a hot flash of vindication he feels when it all goes south in the station, but it vanishes when she flinches away from him, recoiling at the death written into his hands and bones. She thinks him a monster. He’s inclined to agree.

The name _Anna_ flits through his mind, but he’s not sure why. All it leaves behind is a sinking bitter guilt and a rush of anger: seething, volatile, aimless.

Enough. Elizabeth’s here now, and he tries twisting himself into the man she needs him to be. Anything to get the job done, right? 

He tries his best. At least, it’s what he tells himself.

***

“You were there at Wounded Knee. I can see it in your face.” Her voice is kinder than it has any right to be. It cuts him worse than cruelty ever could.

He swallows. Shivers. Remembers the smell of burning leather and prairie grass, lullabies in Sioux, bloodied hair dried and cracking in the folds of his hands. 

Fuck, he needs a whiskey.

***

A choice. Numbers spinning beneath his fingertips. He’s never flown an airship, but somehow that doesn’t bother him. New York? Paris? He doesn’t know what she wants of Paris. He’s never been there, never planned to be. 

It has to be New York. _Wipe away the debt!_

All he knows is what he’s been told, _wipe it away_ and come out clean, but when she levies the wrench at his head, he doesn’t feel afraid. He only feels he’s failed, and at least the feeling is familiar.

***

Finktown’s full of filth, but what did you expect for a place with a name like that? Booker’s seen it too many times. He leaves dead almost-Pinkertons behind him like shadows seared in the streets. 

Elizabeth’s compassion makes him uneasy. He wishes he had the words to warn her of the snakepit they’re walking into. Wishes he knew how to keep that kindness in her eyes where it ought to be. But words are tools unsuited to his dirty hands, and besides, he doesn’t feel right here. Nose bleeding, head foggy, fucking dizzy. Something’s wrong. 

He died. He lived. He died. Did he? He fights it. There’s something wrong here, something _goddamned wrong_ ….

He almost thinks he has it, then, the puzzle, the shape of it, but it slithers away from him before he can pin it down. He pushes on. Work to be doing, after all. Protect the girl. 

He fights through the worst of it, but Fitzroy falls. It’s Elizabeth’s kind face wearing the blood that’s his by rights, and he’s sick, sick, sick. Like Wounded Knee. Like – like _Anna_ –

His fist is heavy on the door, but she doesn’t answer him. “I know how this feels,” he tries, guilt coiling in his belly, but the silence grows. He’s crushed beneath it, condemned, and Columbia’s sins collapse upon him.

***

“Let me do it,” he insists. He stands over a dead woman cased in glass and for a moment he hears a cry ringing out, sees a sweet face whiter than the blood-blown sheets, remembers her name –

But it’s gone, quicker than he can follow, and he does this thing so Elizabeth doesn’t have to. He’d do anything, so she won’t have to.

It won’t be New York, this time.

***

Snow in the air, January roaring across the white sky. The wind sighs in the walls and Booker wanders the asylum, fighting panic with every step. The faces here are wrong, horrible masks in plaster and doll’s hair, hollow blank eyes. The thing that gnaws him is how familiar they seem, somehow. And through it all her screams, so distant he might almost imagine them, but he has to find her, has to save her, has to fucking _fix this_ –

Fire and blood, rage towering in him like he’s never known before, and she’s there. She’s _there_. His hands tremble. “Elizabeth.” 

He falters with his words; they come out so small and simple. Not enough for the hurt in her eyes or the bruises on her back. The sounds he tries are just useless things in a graveled voice, clattering against the floor, and he leaves them there. Blood will have to speak for him.

***

“Nothing is finished! You lock her up her whole life. You cut off her finger, and you pin it on me?” His throat’s ragged with the effort and hatred _boils_ up out of him, a foulness that leaves him panting. Comstock’s _dead_ , he’s finally dead, and shouldn’t he feel better with the man’s blood on his hands?

But Elizabeth fixes him with luminous eyes and fists clenched at her sides. _“What did he mean?”_

He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know the answer to any of it, and the wrongness buzzes in his head. Can’t think about that right now. Work’s not done yet.

He wipes his own blood from his nose, and it dries red on his fingertips.

***

Doorways. Elizabeth’s right. They’re beautiful, lights in white and gold awash against the inky dark, the sound of waves gentle. The lighthouses call to him, and their song hums unbroken. 

For a moment he doesn’t know what he feels. It’s wholly unfamiliar. Is it… hope?

She takes his hand. It’s small, but steely, too. The doors open, and that faintness he called hope dissolves to dread.

Water rushes in his ears. Voices singing, hymns over a river’s course. The baby cooing, the way she used to kick her legs just so. Rain against his face, hard to tell the difference between blood. Or tears.

She’s kind, even now. He’s so proud of her for that. Even with it all, she’s better than he ever was. He knows as well as she does that this, this final choice, is a mercy in more ways than one. 

Her hands are small. But they hold him down just as well as iron.

***

“Mr. DeWitt?” she asks, giving him a friendly smile. He is one of her favorites, even though she has read through his file. Pinkerton. Widower. The White Injun of Wounded Knee. Still, a man’s old life has little bearing once he comes to this ward, and Polly knows she has a calling here for folks like this.

Booker DeWitt gazes up at her, green-glass eyes bright and alert. She cannot help a moment’s trace of pity. He always _seems_ to be here with her. And yet….

“Elizabeth,” he says gruffly. “Don’t run off like that.” Though he gives her a stern look, a half-smile edges across his face.

She likes him in this mood. The male orderlies worry for her when she sees Mr. DeWitt, and she knows they mean well, but he only ever seems to get violent with _them_. He is nothing but a gentleman – well, a gentleman rough around the edges – when he speaks to “Elizabeth.” Dr. Bay has encouraged her to play along when Mr. DeWitt falls into these moods. Anything else seems to distress the man.

“Don’t worry, Mr. DeWitt. I’m here now. I’ll take care of you.”

A flicker of confusion crosses his face; his mouth thins, lips turning down at the corners. “Call me Booker.” He sighs, leaning forward and burying his face in his hands. The bedsprings creak as he moves. “Elizabeth, _I won’t let them take you_. You understand?” He raises his head, giving her a piercing gaze. 

It reminds her of someone. She blinks when she catches it. The Indian woman that lived near her parents’ farm; she remembers that same steeliness in the eyes.

“Of course, Booker.” She carefully checks his heart rate, gives him a thermometer. He keeps it under his tongue obediently, but holds out his hand for her to check. She turns it over. As always, the only abnormality is the jagged _AD_ scarred into the back of his hand, long since healed. There are no new wounds. Yet he has held this hand to her a dozen times.

He looks at her expectantly. She sighs, then removes a strip of gauze from her apron pocket and wraps it around his hand. “Much obliged,” he says. She makes a note to replace the gauze for the next time she tends to him.

She turns to the tray behind her, then turns back to him, his medications nestled in a tin. “Here you are.”

Mr. DeWitt looks at the tin, his forehead creased in concentration. She notices the lines at the edges of his eyes, the gray streaking his hair. It’s a shame. He’s no longer a young man, but nor is he elderly, unlike so many here. Perhaps that is why she sorrows, now and then, thinking of him.

“Salts?” he asks. They have never been able to figure out what he means when he says this.

“Salts, Booker.” She hands the tin to him, and he pops them into his mouth readily, cradling the tin in his hand.

Dr. Bay tells her it’s called Korsakoff’s, named after a famous Russian neurologist. A curious syndrome brought on by alcoholism. She had never heard of it before coming here. _Anterograde amnesia._

They don’t know how to treat it, though. Dr. Bay tries sedatives at a low dose. Polly isn’t sure they do much but make the man sleep. She always hopes they will rest his mind, but every time she sees him, there is a new story, usually more fantastical than the last. She has pieced together some of them. A floating city. Strange worlds beset by violent rebels. A bird that somehow frightens him. 

She remembers Dr. Bay’s notes, the phrase that makes her heart ache. _The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist…_ She scratches down today’s log in his file.

“How did you get to be so good at codebreaking?” Mr. DeWitt asks her, noticing her writing. 

Polly’s mind races, attempting to keep pace with the delusion. Before she can formulate an answer, though, Mr. DeWitt yawns. With a start she notices a trail of blood from his left nostril. 

“Booker, you’re bleeding.”

Dr. Bay says it’s something to do with the alcohol. Hurts the platelets, somehow, makes it hard for them to clot. She reaches hurriedly for extra gauze in her cart and tenderly blots the blood from his nose. They’ll have tests to run on him later, poor fellow. She checks his eye and gum color. Still all right, thankfully.

“I remember I fought – Slate and I, we burned the Hall of Heroes – I died for the Vox –” He shakes his head, breathing hard. She lays her hand on his shoulder, hoping he finds it a comfort. It will only be a moment now. 

“Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt,” Mr. DeWitt mumbles, pupils unfocused. His grip on the tin that held the medication loosens, and carefully she wrests it away from his fingers before it can drop on the floor. His hand is warm, the fingers heavily calloused. 

“Stay with me, Booker,” Polly says softly. He slumps, leaning heavily to one side with his shoulders sagging, and she helps him down the rest of the way until his face meets the pillow. She pulls his blanket up over his chest. Once he is asleep she collects a blood sample from him, then tapes a bandage to his arm. Dr. Bay will need to check his platelets again. 

She carefully notes the encounter in his file, but she is temporarily distracted by the rain drumming against the window, lightning sharp in the distance. With the aid of its flash she can see the lighthouse far beyond the sound, miles beyond their city. She shivers. Something about it seems sinister, somehow.

“Constants, and variables,” says a woman’s voice.

Polly jerks upright. A man and a woman in rain slickers, both alike, stand beside Mr. DeWitt’s bed. “Excuse me! Visiting hours are over!” says Polly indignantly. She’s quite surprised. Mr. DeWitt’s only family listed is a wife and daughter, both deceased.

The man looks mildly put out. “It seems you win this round, dear sister.”

“I told you this one could not be considered. Far too damaged. Biology and self-loathing are strange masters, brother.”

“Excuse me,” Polly repeats.

“The file is fascinating, though, you must admit! I suspect there may be other windows between realities beyond the ones we have made ourselves,” the man suggests. Polly stares at them in bewilderment.

“The girl may be communicating with him, but I think it is more likely that a mind can only be broken in so many ways. Eventually, it might happen upon the truth.”

“ _Excuse_ me….”

“Such a faint possibility for _these_ particular delusions to be created, unless counterparts are somehow innately connected –”

“You are overthinking it, as usual. Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day, and in an infinite universe, no single outcome is as unlikely as the next. Sometimes I wonder if biology might have been as equal a pursuit as physics –”

“ _Excuse me!_ You’ll have to leave!” shouts Polly, standing and squaring her shoulders. “Mr. DeWitt needs his rest. How did you get in here? Was it Alice at the front desk? She’s always shirking –”

“There is no need to get upset. We won’t be troubling you again,” the woman assures her. 

“We have seen all we need to see. We wish you the best of luck in caring for him,” the man says, gesturing to Mr. DeWitt. “We do apologize for the inconvenience.”

A terrific flash of lightning is followed by a resounding crack of thunder. Rain slams against the window in a mad staccato. Polly blinks. The man and woman are nowhere to be found.

_Must have hurried out,_ she thinks, suddenly anxious. Then she breathes a sigh of relief. Korsakoff’s, at least, is not contagious. No need to worry about her own mental state. 

The rain pounds against the building. Beneath his roughspun blanket, Mr. DeWitt stirs. “Anna?” he murmurs, his voice gentle. “Anna? Is that you?”

Polly frowns at the sight of his sleep-slacked face, worry sinking into the pit of her stomach. _Not again._

She reaches for her gauze, and she wipes away the red.

**Author's Note:**

> Korsakoff syndrome is a real disease seen in late-stage alcoholics; chronic vitamin B1 deficiency can result in dizziness, confusion, hypotension and fainting, as well as coagulopathy (abnormal bleeding). If thiamine is not administered (difficult as it wasn't synthesized until the 1930s), anterograde amnesia may be permanent and completely destroy the ability to create new memories. Somewhat unique to other types of dementia, the afflicted person may confabulate constantly, attempting to make a story that makes sense of their world, but they may only remember it for a few minutes at a time. An excellent case study of this disease is found in Oliver Sachs' book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
> 
> Obviously, Booker DeWitt suffers from many of the above symptoms in canon and in this story. The question is, behind which door is the truth?
> 
> This story could be taken a number of different ways. I hope whichever way it was interpreted, it made you sad. >:)


End file.
